6. FRAMEWORK FOR THE CURRENT COURSE BOOK
7.1. Part 1: Transcription writing, Reinforcement writing,
7.1.2. Reinforcement writing
Like ‘Transcription writing’, ‘Reinforcement writing’ consists of three different subcategories. They are grammar, vocabulary, and content. This is also the biggest class with its 117 exercises, which is 58% of all the exercises in Steps 3. All exercises in this class have the purpose of reinforcing the structures and vocabulary that has been learnt or is being learnt, i.e. they aid learners in committing new material into the memory.
Grammar reinforcement turned out not to be a very substantial part of the exercises according to this analysis. The amount of exercises was 31, out of which 10 were placed in the revision sections. This means that in average there were less than two grammar exercises per chapter, which is not much, considering that there are close to 20 exercises in each chapter. Grammar teaching seemed to be concentrated into the revision sections which contained also several tables of various grammatical structures not present in the chapters themselves. The types of grammar exercises varied from ‘find all past tense verb forms in the text’ (exercise type (1) in the list) to writing complete sentences independently with the help of one model sentence (exercise type (5) in the list). I found six different task types which are presented in Table 6.
Table 6 Different types of grammar exercises
number of exercises
(1) find in the text 2
(2) choose items and form a sentence 7
(3) complete a sentence 8
(4) parallel sentences 3
(5) write a sentence 8
(6) mixed features 3
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total 31
‘Parallel sentences’ involve rewriting given sentences by changing the tense, or changing positive sentences into negative ones. ‘Mixed features’ contains the exercises where one or more of the previous task types are combined. Example 5 is of an exercise where task types (3) and (5) are mixed. It is from chapter 3, exercise 15 (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008:50):
Example 5
Kuvittele, minkälaista Terryn ja Julian kodissa on. Kirjoita. Kerro eri huoneista ja niiden väreistä.
The owners of the house are Terry and Julia.
The door of the house is blue.__________________________
Talon ovi on sininen.
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The ceiling of ______________________________________________
Kylpyhuoneen katto
__________________________________________________
Olohuoneen seinät
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
The first sentence functions as a model. After that, the second sentence requires completion, while the third sentence has to be written independently, but with the help of a Finnish translation. The last few empty lines indicate that the learner should create additional sentences independently. Without the first three sentences this exercise could even have been classified as ‘guided composition’.
Another example of ‘mixed features’ involves the writing of full sentences with the help of the contents of a previous text and model sentences. Also ’parallel sentences’ are involved, since the tenses used in the text are systematically being replaced. Also, the latter part of the exercise is not based on the text, but belongs to exercise type (5).
Chapter 8, exercise 12 (Huhtanen-Halme et al. 2008: 141):
Example 6
Illalla Ben mietti päiväänsä. Mitä kaikkea oli tapahtunut koulussa ja kotona?
Kirjoita lauseita pluskvamperfektissä.
In the evening Ben thought about his day. What had happened at home and at school?
He had played football in the school yard.______________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
And you? What had you done by ten o’clock last night?
I had brushed my teeth._____________________________________
_______________________________________________________
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The number of vocabulary reinforcement exercises and grammar exercises did not differ much. There were 32 exercises related to the learning of vocabulary. Most of them were to do with single words, and only six involved writing sentences. I found four types of vocabulary tasks presented in Table 7.
Table 7 Different types of vocabulary exercises
number of exercises
(1) produce a single word for a group 2 (2) produce a single word 24 (3) produce a sentence,
word(s) given in English 5 (4) produce a sentence,
word(s) given in Finnish 1 _________
total 32
An example of the first task type would be names of occupations that are arranged into different groups according to a common feature and learners’ task is to write down more occupations that fit in those groups. Task types (3) and (4) involve the writing of complete sentences with the help of words that are provided earlier in the same or previous exercise, or in a place which is mentioned in the instructions for the exercise.
Also model sentences are provided at the beginning of these exercises. Examples of this type would be exercises 1 and 2 in chapter 4 (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008:64-65) where pictures and words of different kinds of materials are first provided, followed by a box containing names of different items in English. Using these two lists learners are expected to create sentences in the following way:
Example 7
Mistä aineesta ne on valmistettu?
Kerro parillesi.
My travel card is made of plastic. Matkakorttini on tehty muovista.
My gloves are made of leather. Käsineeni on tehty nahasta.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Example 8
Tutki tavaroita kotonasi. Mitä ainetta ne ovat?
My curtains are made of cotton. Ikkunaverhoni on tehty puuvillasta.
_______________________________________________________________
etc.
The difference between this exercise and that of ’Copying’ on vocabulary level is that here learners choose words and use them to form sentences, whereas in ’Copying’ they only rearrange single words or use them to fill in a gap in a sentence. Likewise, the difference between this exercise and that of ’Copying’ on sentence level is that the latter refers to the copying of an entire sentence which is already written in the text whereas here the learner is creating the sentence.
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Nearly all vocabulary reinforcement exercises belonged to the second group, ‘produce a single word‘. Most of the exercises in this biggest group merely required the learners to write down single, unconnected words without any real context other than that of the theme they were related to. This seems to me a rather poor and unimaginative way to revise words. My point here is illustrated best by providing samples of these exercises from chapters 9 and 4 (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008: 162, 67-68):
Example 9
Mitä muita vesimaisemaan liittyviä sanoja muistat englanniksi?
archipelago saaristo __________________________________________
headland niemi __________________________________________
mainland manner __________________________________________
Example 10
Mitä vaatteita muistat englanniksi? Muistele päästä varpaisiin.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
The latter exercise was followed by additional pictures of clothing and their names in English, which are presumably supposed to be new to the learners. The following exercise in the book continued the same theme and was slightly more interesting:
Example 11
Mikä on mielivaatteesi?
What is your favourite piece of clothing? _________________________________
What colour is it? _________________________________
What is it made of? _________________________________
Who was it made by? _________________________________
etc.
What makes this exercise more interesting than the other two above is the fact that it is more personal and involves the learner to a greater extent. These types of exercises occur frequently in this course book series, and I would imagine that the intention is to increase the learners’ personal involvement in their English studies. All in all, the book contains quite a lot of vocabulary, but unfortunately it seems to me that after introducing it to the learners nothing much is done with it in terms of real communication or truly meaningful exercises.
Also the repertoire of different vocabulary exercises - as well as exercises in general- is much narrower than would be expected on the basis of different course book series that are used in A-level English courses. In addition to the two vocabulary exercise types that were illustrated above -answering questions, and different types of lists- there are
only two additional types: completing sentences, and writing complete sentences, which exercises 1 and 2 were examples of. Many common exercise types, such as gap-fils, are missing altogether.
The last, and biggest, subgroup of Reinforcement writing was ‘Content’. 46% of reinforcement writing exercises belonged to this subgroup. As explained earlier in chapter 7.2. The classification of the writing tasks, the response required for exercises in this subgroup is on sentence level. Either the learner is expected to form a question when an answer is provided, or to give an answer when a question is provided. Mostly the questions related to the texts presented in the chapters, or to the learner’s personal likes and dislikes, etc. There were also exercises where a dialogue needed to be completed, either by initiating or giving responses as in chapter 1, exercise 4, (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008:15):
Example 12
Täydennä puuttuvat puheenvuorot.
Good evening. _______________________________________
How are you? _______________________________________
Tea? _______________________________________
etc.
____________________________ Here you are.
____________________________ Never mind.
____________________________ No thanks.
etc.
Also some of the listening exercises in the course book are classified as ‘content’
exercises. These are those listening exercises which require a written response. In this case, instead of a whole sentence, the response required can also consist of single words or expressions which the learner has to pick out from the text he/she hears. The listening exercises amounted to 15 out of 54 ‘Content’ exercises. According to the instructions, learners can answer the listening comprehension exercises either in English or in Finnish, but here they are considered from the point of answering in English. Chapter 1, excercise 5 (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008:15)
Example 13
Kuuntele mistä Oliver, Ann ja Ruth keskustelevat.
Weekend plans
It is a sunny Friday afternoon. Oliver and his sister Ruth meet Oliver’s neighbour in the street.
Kuuntele vielä kerran. Mitä kohteliaita sanontoja kuulet puhujien käyttävän?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
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One interesting group of exercises belonging to ‘Content’ consists of writing something that I would call ‘creative sentences’. These are exercises where learners are required to create complete sentences without model sentences or given material other than a single word and/ or instruction. There were 11 of these exercises and six of them followed the phonetic writing exercises. All these were the same type as this one in Chapter 6, exercise 19 (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008:107-108):
Example 14
Valitse tehtävästä ainakin kolme sanaa. Kirjoita lause tai lauseita, joissa käytät sanoja.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
The remaining five exercises were also connected to the exercises preceding them in the same way as in the previous example. For instance, after creating interview questions for given answers there is the following ‘creative sentence’ exercise (Huhtala-Halme et al. 2008:33):
Example 15
Mitä muuta haluaisit tietää Jimistä? Keksi kolme omaa kysymystä.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
This type of sentence differs from the sentences in the other subgroups of ‘Grammar’
and ‘Vocabulary‘. There is no specific grammatical structure that is expected to be used, and there is not much given in terms of structures, phrases, or vocabulary to facilitate the creating of sentences. In exercises 1 and 2 of step 4 (presented on page 60), which belong under the heading of ‘Vocabulary‘, English words for both nouns and materials were given, as well as two model sentences, which gave the structure for the sentences that learners needed to write.
In summary, the different types and numbers of exercises to be found in the group
‘Content’ are presented in Table 8.
Table 8 Different types of ‘Content’ exercises
number of exercises
(1) Ask questions 4
(2) Answer questions 16
(3) Complete/ correct sentence/ dialogue 8 (4) Answer listening comprehension questions 15 (5) Create single sentences independently 11
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total 54